CHAPTER 6

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

Expected Outcomes
Able to identify several different approaches towards continuous process improvement
Understand method applied to continuous improvement in quality aspect
Chapter Outline

• Process

• Types of Problems

• Improvement Strategies

• The Juran Trilogy

• Problem Solving Method

• Kaizen

• Reengineering

• Six-Sigma
Introduction
Improvement is made by:
• Viewing all work as a process
• Making all processes effective, efficient and adaptable
• Anticipating changing customer needs
• Eliminating non value added process
• Using benchmarking to improve competitive advantage
• Innovating to achieve breakthroughs
• Incorporating lessons learned into future activities
• Using technical tools
Process
Is the interaction of some combination of 6M; people (Man),
Materials, equipments (Machines), Method, Measurement and
the environment (Mother Nature) to produce an outcome such as a
product, service or an input to another process.
 Input / Output
Process Model
Process
Man Machine Methode

INPUT OUTPUT

Material Measurement Mother Nature

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6
Process
Man Machine Methode

Painter Nozzle Paint

sequence
Paint mixer
Distance
Material between
Handler Trolley
nozzle to
body

INPUT
OUTPUT
Body In
Painted Body.
White

Current Dust
Paint
Voltage Room Temperature
Thinner
Paint Humidity
thickness
Water

Material Measurement Mother Nature

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Example Car Painting Process

Process
5 basic ways to improve process:
1. Reduce resources – uses more resources then necessary is
wasteful
2. Reduce errors – errors are a sign of poor workmanship and
require rework
3. Meet or exceed expectations of downstream customers
4. Make the process safer
5. Make the process more satisfying to the person doing it
Types of Problems

Compliance

Product
Unstructured
Design
Types of
Problems

Process
Efficiency
Design
Improvement Strategies

Repair
• Anything broken must be fixed so that it functions as designed
• 2 levels : quick fix and permanent solution

Refinement
• Activities that continually improve a process that is not broken
• Incremental basis – improve efficiency and effectiveness

Renovation
• Results in major or breakthrough improvements
• Key factor : innovation and technological advancements

Reinvention
• Begins by imagining that the previous condition does not exist
• Feel current approach will never satisfy customer requirements
Process Improvement
There are several different approaches towards continuous process
improvement:
• Juran’s Trilogy – approaches quality improvement from a cost-
oriented perspective
• Shewhart’s PDSA Cycle – engineering scientific method applied to
continuous improvement and quality
• Kaizen – approach focuses on making small incremental
improvements
• Reengineering & Six-Sigma Concepts
The Juran Trilogy

• Developed by Dr. Joseph Juran

• Process improvement involves planning
• It has 3 components:
1. Planning
2. Control
3. Improvement
• If based on financial processes (cost-oriented):
1. Budgeting
2. Expense measurement
3. Cost reduction
The Juran Trilogy
PLANNING
1. Determine customers
2. Discover their needs – requires customers to state needs in
their own words and from their own viewpoint
• Real needs may differ from stated needs
• Might discover these needs by:
a. Being a user of the product or service
b. Communicating with customers through product / service
satisfaction and dissatisfaction information
c. Simulation in the laboratory
3. Develop product / service features that respond to customer
needs
4. Develop processes able to produce the product / service
features
5. Transferring plans to operations
The Juran Trilogy
CONTROL
• Used by operating forces to help meet the requirements
• Consists of the following steps:
1. Determine items to be controlled and their units of measure
2. Set goals for the controls and determine what sensors need to be
put in place to measure the product, process or service
3. Measure actual performance
4. Compare actual performance to goals
5. Act on the difference

IMPROVEMENT
• Begin with the establishment of an effective infrastructure such as
the quality council
• Quality council is the driver that ensures that improvement is
continuous and never ending – incremental / breakthrough
The Juran Trilogy
• Sporadic waste can be identified and corrected through quality
control
• Chronic waste requires an improvement process

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PDSA Cycle
Kaizen
• Is a Japanese word for the philosophy that defines management’s
role in continuously encouraging and implementing small
improvements involving everyone
• Process of continuous improvement is in small increments that
make the process more efficient, effective, under control and
adaptable
• Improvements are usually accomplished at little or no expense,
without sophisticated techniques or expensive equipment
• Focuses on simplification by breaking down complex processes into
their sub-processes and then improving it
Kaizen
Kaizen improvement focuses on the use of:
• Value-added and non-value-added activities
• Muda : which refers to the seven classes of waste – over
production, delay, transportation, processing, inventory, wasted
motion and defective parts
• Principles of motion study and the use of cell technology
• Principles of materials handling and use of one-piece flow
• Documentation of standard operating procedures
• Visual management by means of visual displays that everyone in
the plant can use for better communications
Visual Management
Kaizen
• 5S’s for workplace organization
• Just-in-time (JIT) principles to produce only the units in the right
quantities at the right time and with the right resources.
• Team dynamics which include problem solving, communication
skills and conflict resolution
• Poka-yoke (techniques for avoiding simple human error at work) to
prevent or detect errors

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Poka-yoke example
5S
1. Seiri
Sort
Sisih

5. Shitsuke 2. Seiton
Sustain Stabilize
Sentiasa amal Susun

4. Seiketsu 3. Seiso
Standardize Shine
Seragam Sapu
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5S
Reengineering
• The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business
processes in order to achieve dramatic improvements in critical
measures of performance
• Focus : identify and eliminate non-value added work and reduce
corresponding costs while maintaining quality
Six-Sigma
• Use process capability analysis as a way of measuring progress
• The statistical aspects tell us that we should reduce the process
variability and try to keep the process centered on the target.
• The smaller the deviation value, the less variability in the process